Department of Industry and Trade hosted a dialogue conference with industrial and trade businesses

Active contributor to economic development

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Director of the Department of Industry and Trade, said the city's industry has strongly developed towards high-tech, eco-friendliness, played a key role in the economy and affirmed its position as a major, highly competitive industrial hub of the country.

The infrastructure system in economic zones and industrial parks is synchronous and modern. The Department of Industry and Trade coordinates with related sectors and localities to advise the City People's Committee to speed up the progress of site clearance for infrastructure construction in industrial zones for production development to woo investors. The share of industry in the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) rose from 39.06% in 2020 to 44.9% in 2022, and the share of high-tech industrial value in the processing and manufacturing sector climbed from 45.5% in 2020 to 53.39% in 2022 (largely driven by the electronics industry).

Hai Phong City continues to attract many large manufacturers with advanced technologies such as LG Group, SK Group (South Korea), Kyocera Document Solutions Company (Japan) and Vingroup. The industry is developed towards increasing added value and smart level.

At the same time, trade is also developed strongly. Commercial infrastructure is seriously invested to entice large-scale commercial infrastructure investment and business projects.

Importing and exporting activities and logistics services are growing rapidly to enable the city to serve as a main gateway to the sea for northern provinces and cities. The city has 701.14 ha of warehouses and yards, with more than 60 main warehouses.

In the first nine months of 2023, the city's GRDP expanded 10.08% year on year, over 2.3 times higher than the country's median (4.24%), ranking third out of 63 provinces and cities, leading both the Red River Delta Region and the five centrally run cities. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) increased over 12% year on year and export value edged up 0.6% to over US$20.6 billion. Its trade jumped by over 13% and the consumer price index (CPI) remained stable.

Hai Phong Department of Industry and Trade coordinated with the Vietnam Trade Office in Mexico to organize a trade connection program between Coppel Group (Mexico) and some Hai Phong-based businesses

Going with the business

Hai Phong City is one of the highest-growth localities in the country. This success resulted from the close and firm direction of the Party Committee, the People's Council and the People's Committee of Hai Phong City, the effort of the local business community to address difficulties and the support of local authorities for the industry and trade sector.

Accordingly, to facilitate businesses to stabilize business activities, the Department of Industry and Trade has advised the city to support companies to boost exports, diversify import and export markets, and search for new markets; and actively tap opportunities of free trade agreements (FTA).

Additionally, the industry and trade sector has supported businesses to promote e-commerce applications in business, and scale up trade promotion, specially introducing OCOP products on the e-commerce platform, hoaphuong.gov.vn.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Director of Hai Phong Department of Industry and Trade, said: Following resolutions of the Party, the Government and City, the industry and trade sector was aware that: Hai Phong City will become a modern, smart and sustainable industrial city; a modern international logistics service center by sea, air, highway, and high-speed rail; a large, synchronous and highly competitive commercial center of the country and importantly contribute to economic growth and restructuring by 2030 and by further 2045. The sector will help establish the city as the center of the region and the country in the international integration era.

To realize this goal, in the coming time, the Department of Industry and Trade will quickly capture situations, promptly remove difficulties and facilitate business development; and advise the city to restructure industry to develop processing, manufacturing, high-tech and supporting sectors.

At the same time, the sector will further support domestic market development; conduct research to make Hai Phong City into a modern international logistics hub linked to an international seaport and to economic corridors and belts.

The sector will strengthen administrative reform, complete essential information technology platforms to build digital government, and promote online public services at levels 3 and 4.